RaceDepartment Editor-in-ChiefStaffPremium

Codemasters have released a mammoth 10gb update for popular rally title DiRT Rally, finally bringing Oculus Rift support to the off road racing game.

Teased just last week by the British studio, Codemasters have today released a patch for PC users of the rally title enabling early Oculus Rift support. Oculus compatibility is currently only available for PC players of the game, with support for other Virtual Reality headsets and console versions of the title possibly coming to the game at a later date.

Although sizable at 10GB, the patch doesn't bring any further enhancements to the sim other than the addition of motion blur to the AI cars in game.

Oculus support is compatible with both the earlier DK2 versions of Oculus and the more recent consumer unit (CV1) headset.

Some notes on using Oculus Rift VR Support can be read below:

To get the game to boot in VR, simply plug in your Oculus headset before you press Play in Steam.

We don’t recommend you turn on VR in the Steam Client, as doing so will disable the Steam Overlay on the desktop image of the game.

To re-centre your view, just hit the Left Ctrl key.

We have added configurable options in the HUD settings in order to reduce motion sickness, which are active by default. We’ve also given each track a comfort rating as a guide to help control motion sickness.

Buggered if I know.....Premium

Still think they should've made this a beta-branch.
As it stands, I can't play the game unless I download a 10GB patch that doesn't change my experience one whit, since I don't have a VR headset.
That's a bit much....

Racing Since 1978

Still think they should've made this a beta-branch.
As it stands, I can't play the game unless I download a 10GB patch that doesn't change my experience one whit, since I don't have a VR headset.
That's a bit much....

Still think they should've made this a beta-branch.
As it stands, I can't play the game unless I download a 10GB patch that doesn't change my experience one whit, since I don't have a VR headset.
That's a bit much....

I also agree for now. but I'm guessing in 3 to 5 years time this will be a non-issue with most of us once VR is commonplace with gamers.

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Well i have a cv1 and i dident mind to download it, its nice to play it and the comfort setting ar good for now. why wait 3 to 5 years, if you look at the internet VR is already a comonplace for gamers

Buggered if I know.....Premium

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Oculus is predicted to sell around 3-4 million units in 2016.
Compare that to a worldwide monitor sale in Q1 2015 of 29 million.

The problem with the internet is that the most vocal voices on it also tend to be the most hardcore.
Or in other words, you're far more likely to read something written by the minority of VR users than you are reading something from the average gamer.
Same thing with e.g. racing-sims. The guys on the publisher-forums who are clamouring for more realism and more features are admittedly the most vocal, but there is a vast majority of gamers who are quite happy just racing the AI, and could care less about tire-deformation and dynamic dry-lines.

Now, just like Duke55 I'm not knocking it. And if you already have a VR headset, you'd be daft not to use it.
But it is still in its infancy, and we have a long way to go until it becomes a serious competitor to the monitor. Not only is there a very small number of games that can actually make any meaningful use of it, we are also looking at the first generation of the technology.
Once we get third- and fourth-gen devices, and software designers figure out how to use the technology for their particular purposes, then it'll start to become more commonplace.
But at present, it's more of a tech-geek thing.

But it is still in its infancy, and we have a long way to go until it becomes a serious competitor to the monitor. Not only is there a very small number of games that can actually make any meaningful use of it, we are also looking at the first generation of the technology

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Lars, I havent used my triples since I first dialled in my DK2. Admittedly before the Oculus 1.1 runtime and Dirt's latest VR update, it was very good, but not great.

Now it is great! It runs very well on my DK2 with a GTX970. Since the update I feel like I have a new headset. Graphics and smoothness are both increased unbelievably. I get excellent head tracking and the true 3d depth of field and sense of speed are so immersive. I can judge distances and speeds much better, and I can definitely drive this game better in VR than I can with a monitor. Yes I get much nicer graphics on the monitor, but I don't get anywhere near the same immersion.

And combined with SimXperience motion sim and Simvibe, it is really the future. And it's here. Now.

Unless you've had a go in a properly dialled headset, you just wont get what VR already is. Yes, its going to get even better, but it is definitely already a game changer.

Buggered if I know.....Premium

Lars, I havent used my triples since I first dialled in my DK2. Admittedly before the Oculus 1.1 runtime and Dirt's latest VR update, it was very good, but not great.

Now it is great! It runs very well on my DK2 with a GTX970. Since the update I feel like I have a new headset. Graphics and smoothness are both increased unbelievably. I get excellent head tracking and the true 3d depth of field and sense of speed are so immersive. I can judge distances and speeds much better, and I can definitely drive this game better in VR than I can with a monitor. Yes I get much nicer graphics on the monitor, but I don't get anywhere near the same immersion.

And combined with SimXperience motion sim and Simvibe, it is really the future. And it's here. Now.

Unless you've had a go in a properly dialled headset, you just wont get what VR already is. Yes, its going to get even better, but it is definitely already a game changer.

Can't wait!

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Well, we can't have the future now. That would make it the present.
Let's not murder the English language any more than we have to.
(Sorry, that was my OCD peeking through. )

Anyway, I'm sure VR is very cool, and if you already have it, by all means go nuts.
As I said, I'm not knocking the technology.
My point was that it is anything but common-place, and won't be for the foreseeable future.
Take the Oculus for example.
Right now it sells for USD599.
And what you get is graphics that are okayish, and are more or less only useable in racing-sims.
Even better, only two racing-games that I know of actually support Oculus natively, Pcars and Dirt neither of which gets much screen-time on my rig.
If you on top of that have to add a motion-rig to get the full experience, then we're suddenly talking a serious amount of cash for something that the sim-racing world has done fine without for several decades.
Add to that the problems with motion-sickness and fitting a headset comfortably when you (like me) wear glasses, and the future might not be quite as bright as it seems.

Now, if we fast-forward maybe five years down the line, when the technology has improved, the price has dropped, and more designers have found ways to incorporate it into their software, then we can start talking.
In the meantime, should I ever find myself with $599 just sitting around, I can think of several better options to use it on.

Wow, Codies have done their homework to make Dirt Rally something special among VR-supported PC racing titles. I used to play Rally Mode with the DK2 but, RX mode was un-playable due to performance issues; that's all fixed now and it looks and runs better than ever using CV1.

The work done to make the Rally title as VR-friendly as possible is impressive and the results make it much easier to tolerate than I could have imagined. Flying over hills and jumps in most titles can be an instant fun-killer in VR but, DR makes it seem like child's play.

Menu access in VR works very well in DR and the replays can be viewed in full VR or in 2D projected on a 3D screen that makes the camera motion & changes a non-issue.

The VR implementation in Dirt Rally uses a very smart approach - especially important with a racing title of this nature and at this time in VR evolution. Nicely played Codies.

Pretty Fly (For a French Fry)Premium

Love these ridiculously sized patches... I've been have all sorts of problems with my Dirt Rally installation. First, I can't do any daily, weekly or monthly events that involve Finnish stages since they immediately send me back to the menu and say that I've lost connection to RaceNet. I even get disconnected randomly for other stages from time to time. I did a re-install a month ago, but it hasn't fixed my issues.

I love Dirt Rally, but these issues and large patches have been really turning me off. Good to here about the VR implementation though, I bet it's an absolute blast for users that have an Occulus.